Adagio 2000 by Gary Bardin

Are you talking too much?

A financial advisor once told me about his young colleague, who, he said, had the gift of the gab. “He can talk himself through the front door … but unfortunately he often finds himself out through the back door without noticing it.”

What is the young man’s problem?

It is definitely easier to sell when you talk well, and a good idea to join a speaking club, such as Toastmasters, to polish your quick thinking and fluent speaking skills if you don’t talk well, but if you just talk and you never stop to listen to your client’s needs and requirements, you might also find yourself out in the street before you know it.

How do you listen to a client – especially when you have to sell?

Those who let the client speak are the best sales people. They ask open-ended questions and listen to answers – and they listen carefully with their whole bodies, minds and hearts to find out what the client’s real needs are.

Often clients will say they want one thing and then don’t want it anymore when you offer it to them. Or they might want one thing and settle for something totally different. Why does that happen?

People buy with their hearts and not their minds. They might need one thing but settle for something they want – and the only way you will be able to find that out is by listening. People don’t buy features. They buy benefits – the things they want for their own reasons.

How do you find it out? By listening.

How should one listen? The answer is simple: With your whole body, your eyes, ears, mind and heart. When you listen with all your faculties focused on the speaker and what he says and doesn’t say, only then will you be in tune with his real desire and will you be able to fill that gap between what he has, what he needs and what he wants.

So, our advice to the young broker is: Let your client do the talking and he’ll talk himself into buying your product.

For more information on workshops, specifically aimed at listening skills and other narrative methods to build relationships, please contact Prose&Coms, at: susan@prosecoms.co.za http://businessnarratives.blogspot.com

This blog appears as a regular column the Afridevelopment newsletter for small business owners. http://afrid.co.za/cms/index.php

Are you really listening?

What does the act of listening mean to you?

Is it the short pause when you take a breath and allow someone else to get a word in, just to interrupt him again to tell your story? Or is it an act to analyse what the other person is saying so that you can catch him out, prove him wrong, or contribute to the conversation? Or are you not listening at all … continuing with what you were doing while the other person talks to you?

You might have heard or even said the words: “Don’t interrupt, just listen to me!”  Or you might ask people why they haven’t told you how they felt. Perhaps they tried to, but you never listened.

Many of us have taken courses in active listening, which means looking the other person in the eyes while he or she is talking, showing your  interest in the way you hold your body, nodding in agreement and making little agreeing sounds, and asking clarifying questions. But even this is not genuine listening.

Then what is genuine listening?

Genuine listening is an act of respect. It is focusing your attention entirely on the person who is telling his story – without interrupting to agree, disagree or ask questions. It is about giving another person the space to let hurts, thoughts, ideas, or worries flow from him, to open up space for new thinking.

True listening is therapeutic. Often a person doesn’t need advice, just the chance to talk: while sharing concerns, fears or doubts, his mind clears and solutions enter the space that was emptied.

By just listening and doing nothing else, you can help to transform negative attitudes into positive ones.  By listening, you can influence people much more than by telling them what to believe.

True listening is much more powerful “telling them”, when you want to influence people, because when you truly listen without judgement to a person voicing his or her uncertainties or anger, you give them permission to sort these feelings out by themselves.

When and to whom do you need to listen?

Always, and to everybody you care about. If you are a parent or a spouse, you can positively influence relationships when you start to listen genuinely. If you are an employer, genuinely listening to the concerns or ideas of your employees will make a difference in their attitudes. If you are a salesman, genuinely listening to and acknowledging your prospective client’s needs or uncertainties can mean the difference between making or losing the sale.

Anyone listening out there?

For more information on workshops, specifically aimed at listening skills and other narrative methods to build relationships, please contact Prose&Coms, at: susan@prosecoms.co.za

This blog appears as a regular column the Afridevelopment newsletter for small businesses owners. http://afrid.co.za/cms/index.php

Know your communication style

Communication, or more precisely, effective communication, lies at the foundation of healthy relationships. Now what makes communication either effective or ineffective?

To illustrate what happens when communication breaks down, let’s look at a possible work-related scenario:

Morris is the general manager at Livewire, a small but busy consultancy. He is under pressure to get a proposal out to a prospective client, and is at the same time preparing for an important meeting with Mojo, a current client, to save a relationship that had gone sour when one of Livewire’s young consultants was perceived as being unapproachable and arrogant.

Earlier the morning, Morris asked this same junior consultant to type up his notes and write the proposal, and it came back for his approval just before his meeting with Mojo - riddled with typos and grammar errors. After making a few corrections, he chucked down the proposal on the consultant’s desk, saying over his shoulder, while he rushed out: “Your spelling is atrocious. And check the grammar. There’s a style guide in my office – use it. I made notes on the side, please affect them. Have it ready by 5 – I’m off to see Mojo to rescue our contract after last week’s incident.”

Anything wrong with this? Morris said clearly what he wanted, by when and how to improve the piece of work. To his mind, he communicated effectively. He didn’t mean to insult the consultant or to tell her that she was inefficient, he just said that she had to correct errors on an important document and be more careful with her grammar.  But why did the consultant cry? And why did she sulk for the rest of the afternoon and went home with a headache and a firm resolution to find another job?

Effective communication implies that a message has been given clearly and understood correctly by the receiver of that message. If this doesn’t happen, the verbal and non-verbal communication did not deliver the intended meaning appropriately.

Without going into a long discussion about “my requirements” versus “your requirements” and how to “get what I want” while “giving you what you want”, we can identify one of the major reasons for the breakdown in communication as our preferred styles of communication that often get in the way of effective communication. 

If Morris had had a better understanding of his staff member’s communication style, he might have changed his manner of speaking to ensure the correct transfer of the message. If, on the other hand, the consultant had not felt guilty or defensive about the previous week’s incident, she might not have taken his brusqueness personally. Or, perhaps this breakdown in communication is a regular issue between Morris and the consultant – and a similar misunderstanding might even have caused the incident of the previous week.

So, what is the solution?

This example is grounded in a specific situation, but it happens so often that misunderstandings cause a rift in relationships, that it is worth our while to invest in improving our communication skills.

Tip of the week: How to communicate effectively

Find out what your preferred style is. If you had done the exercise in the previous post, you might be able to point out incidents where communication had broken down because of a misunderstanding of intention. Why did that happen? Do you know? Can you put yourself in the other person’s shoes and try to understand the misunderstood message from his or her perspective?

Most communication experts distinguish between four styles of communication, but tag them differently. For the sake of simplicity, we will refer to the communication styles as: Creator, Doer, Listener and Thinker. On the extroverted side, we get: The Creator and The Doer. On the introverted side, we get: The Listener and The Thinker.

Listeners, who are generally not very assertive, often get into conflict with Doers, and vice versa. If the Listener can focus more on definite actions and less on personal relationships, he or she can change a potential conflict situation into a meaningful conversation, while, if the Doer just counts to 10 before responding and shows more of his or her feelings, the Listener will understand the message and be able to respond better.

Creators are often very intense in their enthusiasm and tend to irritate Thinkers, who like to ponder on the detail and the processes, and vice versa. So Creators can do well to slow down a bit to listen to what the Thinker has to say because the Thinker’s input is often of great value. Thinkers, on the other hand, can try to move faster and leave the detail for later. They can also try to show more concern for human relationships.

Now where do YOU lie on the matrix?  Take a quick (free) quiz on http://www.asme.org/Jobs/Manage/Whats_Communication_Style.cfm to see your preferred style – and then work at your relationships.

For more information on workshops, specifically aimed at getting your message across effectively in diverse teams, please contact Prose&Coms, at: susan@prosecoms.co.za

This blog appears as a regular column the Afridevelopment newsletter for small businesses owners. http://afrid.co.za/cms/index.php

Are you building or breaking relationships?

Prose&Coms Business Narratives offers advice to small businesses on doing better business through effective communications. We hope that, by sharing communication tips, tricks and tools, we will stimulate you into thinking strategically about your business communications: What you communicate, to whom, how, how often, where and when.

If someone asks you: “About what is your business?,” what would your answer be? “I sell vegetables to our local community.” Or computers or stationary to small businesses, or communication services to corporate businesses, or, whatever your product or service might be. When you give an answer to this basic question, you are communicating to a potential client, funder, supplier or employee. The way that you communicate is important, whether you do it verbally, in writing or through your body language, facial expressions or gestures.

Do you know how you come across and what message the other person receives? Are you self-confident or anxious to make a sale or get funding? Does fear or anger show in your voice, body and eyes? How do you stand? How do you use your hands? Do you speak clearly? How effectively do you communicate?

Very often, we forget that all of us are in the business of relationship-building, externally with customers, suppliers or funders, as well as internally, with our staff – and that the way we communicate to those important stakeholders in our business build or break relationships.

Tip for the week: Become aware of the way you communicate and for two weeks, note down incidents where you communicated ineffectively. Look at how people react to you. Do they understand your message? Do they become defensive without you knowing why? Perhaps the answer lies in your communication style.

This blog appears as a regular column the Afridevelopment newsletter for small businesses owners. http://afrid.co.za/cms/index.php

How stories facilitate transformation

By Susan Williams

When do you know that a story has had an impact on people? How do you measure that impact? And how do you know which stories to use?

These are some of the questions that organizational storytellers encounter when proposing storytelling as a strategic tool for learning and for inspiring original and creative thinking.

They are tricky questions, because there is so much to consider, for instance, the situation, the reason for telling the story, the way the story is told, the facilitation of the story process, executive support and the receptiveness and open-mindedness of the participants.

When stories become instruments for transformation

The transformational power of a story is evident when a person or a group of people had been struggling with a problem for some time and the story ignited insight. This is when the typical aha! moment is experienced, eyes light up and smiles break through.  When this happens it feels like sunshine bursting through a crack in dark storm clouds. The energy that is created in such an event continues to spark conversation long after the event.

Stories transform thinking when a sudden incident or crises causes a group to reconsider everything that used to work before and that is suddenly obsolete. That is when linear solutions, best practice and all preconceived ideas need to be replaced by some unknown factor, and analytical thinking need to be refueled by an intuitive, creative process. A well chosen story creates a fertile and safe space for radical thinking.

Why?

The reason is that it is difficult to catapult oneself out of the problem sphere into a creative space when a crisis is looming. But tell a story and the creative, right brain starts to make connections between the issues in the story and those around the crisis without any prompting or effort.

Stories can be short or long. Trainers have been using short, anecdotal tales and analogies for many years, achieving great successes to bring memorable messages across. However, using a story (e.g. fable, fairy tale, folk tale) as the epicenter of a workshop and solving problems within the story context, is not that commonly used. It is, though, remarkably effective.

By using the context of such a story, stepping into the characters’ roles, discussing decisions and how they affect the plot and the outcome of the story, a typical heated boardroom discussion can be transformed into dialogue where huge mind shifts take place.

How a shared story created a mind shift

I want to share an example of how a story recently used in an informal situation caused an aha! moment for the recipient.

After reading Dave Snowden’s analogy of the difference between a recipe book cook and a chef (see the link below), the story resonated in my head, because, for starters, I like cooking and exploring taste, texture and presentation (but I do read recipe books for the pleasure of it), and secondly, I am sorting out my own questions about knowledge vs wisdom, and the value of following best practices vs insights gained through the creative process.

So when I was in conversation with a client, a situation presented itself where this story just popped up. I shared it, without really thinking of the impact it would make. And I was amazed at the instant when connection took place. This was one of the incredible moments where a story took away the need to discuss a complex issue. This was a Truth moment for this specific person. However, for someone else in another situation, the story might just be a nice analogy to use in a meeting or discussion.

Measuring story impact is a tall order

Measuring the impact of the story is of a more complex nature. How can a storyteller or consultant promise a change in attitudes, financial gain or a change in direction prior to offering a workshop? It definitely depends on the experience and expertise of the workshop leader, but it remains a tough question for which I don’t have the answer yet. Is it something that can be calculated in the short term? The impact of the story relies hugely on the research and preparation done by the facilitator prior to the workshop and the openness and willingness of the workshop participants to explore uncomfortable issues that force them out of familiar thinking patterns.

Skills training versus storytelling

Compare measuring a storytelling event’s impact with that of a skills training course. Both are planned around outcomes, follow a process and are based on participation and the willingness to learn. The storytelling outcomes might be vague and abstract, such as: “after this session, we want to have more clarity about the issue xyz.” 

The skills training course, on the other hand, follows specific outlines to transfer a particular skills set often based on a specific qualification standard. After the training, the trainee can now perform certain actions according to a set standard. Does this necessarily make him a better employee who can apply his skill diagonally in other situations?

Measurement is by nature a linear, analytical process even if different areas are integrated. I’m not sure that the true value of storytelling can ever be traced using linear systems.

In storytelling, a creative and intuitive process takes place where people share knowledge and insight and are willing to explore unknown or difficult territories in a facilitated environment. The knowledge gained comes from exploring issues and sharing insights through a process that is set in motion during the storytelling event, and continues independently within each person and collectively within the group for a long time after the actual event. The impact of this process is immeasurable and invaluable.

Is the whole  person involved?

Storytelling is an internal, whole person process which takes place cognitively as well as at an emotional and experiential  level – and at times, even at a spiritual awareness level. To my mind the question should not be how to measure the impact of the interaction linearly, but whether the whole person was involved in the storytelling act. If the answer is positive, the impact will be seen in the way employees engage with the business.

In conclusion, the amazing thing about stories is that they touch a chord that resonates within us  – sometimes even against our will. And they sometimes present themselves just at the right moment.

© Susan Williams, 2009.

Knowledge at your fingertips

Finding stories in the workplace

By Susan Williams

In almost every encounter between people is a hidden story. Those stories can be personal or they can revolve around company issues. They can be positive, informative and teaching stories, or they can be negative, talking about relationships that don’t work, and providing the kind of knowledge that leads to a break-down in communications and learning. Both these kinds of stories have value when you find them: The good stories are the ones you tell to facilitate learning and employee or customer engagement and loyalty, while the negative ones are red flags that pop up to serve as warnings. They are the ones that can be compared to the iceberg’s tip, indicating a mountain of trouble hidden beneath the surface.

5 tips on finding stories

1.       Listen attentively. Stories come to you when you listen – especially when you are looking for something specific, for instance those anecdotes that show engagement with the company values and vision.

2.       Ask. Network with colleagues in different departments and ask specific questions – don’t be general. For instance, don’t ask for a story that embodies the company’s value of Customer focus. Ask if someone knows of a customer who was really impressed with the service experienced by an employee. Or ask if someone has a tip for handling difficult customers. It won’t be long before the stories will come pouring out.

3.       Become focused on seeing history taking place in front of your eyes. If you don’t focus on finding stories, they will remain hidden.

4.       Think about the deeper issues: What are the actual issues underlying employee or customer complaints? They might be value-related, or be about integrity, or weak leadership…

5.       What are the feel-good stories? A job well done. Or a kind deed…

© Susan Williams, 2009

An invitation to share

Should you wish to share some insights on relevant topics, please submit your original article for consideration to be published. You will be credited and will retain copyright for your submission.

Cherry-picked websites

Most interesting podcast: On LinkedIn Group: On-boarding – accelerating new employee transitions. Peter Clayton interviews George Selix on: Designing an Interactive Learning Environment and executive on-boarding. (http://www.linkedin.com). This podcast focuses on George Selix’s work at Sun Microsystems and the building of an interactive learning environment as well as the concept of enculturation.

Most interesting article: David Gurteen’s Knowledge Letter  http://www.gurteen.com is an excellent and entertaining source of information for those who share an interest in Knowledge Management and Storytelling. He cites a gem of a story by Dave Snowden, The chef & the recipe book user, which Snowden used as an analogy in a keynote speech. To read more, go to: http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/dave/2009/11/the_chef_the_recipe_book_user.php

Most interesting online newsletter:  www.fastcompany.com . The newsletter covers topics on Technology, Design, Ethonomics and Leadership.   The latest buzzword seems to be ”social marketing”. Blogger David Lavenda shines some light on the topic in his blog, “How To Be Effective at Social Marketing” in FastCompany’s newsletter of 17 November.

To read more, click on: http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/david-lavenda/whatever-it-takes/how-be-effective-social-marketing?

 Most interesting video: I came across Dave Snowden of Cognitive Edge’s You Tube video, How to organize a children’s party on David Gurteen’s Knowledge Letter Issue 113 ( http://www.gurteen.com ). The Children's Party Story introduces the nature of systems and complexity through the use of a simple metaphor that resonates widely. http://www.cognitive-edge.com

 

On my reading list:

1.       Frank Furedi, Invitation to Terror, Continuum, 2007. ISBN 978-0-8264-2454-9. Available on Amazon.com

Exploring the question: “Why do they hate us?” But who are they, and who are we and how do we respond to terrorism.  The idea that terrorism is an existential threat is the product of society’s inability to give meaning to human experience. …Maybe we should be asking the question, ‘Why do we hate ourselves?’”

2.       PG du Plessis, Fees van die Ongenooides, Tafelberg, 2008. ISBN 978-0-624-04687-5. Available at Exclusive Books and Boekehuis, Johannesburg.

A disturbingly honest historical novel about the Anglo-Boer War which explores what we believe, how we love, what we strive for, the lie within us and our memories.

Giving back

With the festive season around the corner there are many organizations looking for sponsorships and deeds of kindness.

A tip on how to spread kindness in your community or company: In our church, we have a Christmas tree decorated with cards containing specific needs and numbers instead of names. Each member of the congregation can pick a card and buy a gift for a person in need, without ever knowing his or her name. The organizers will deliver the gifts.